A Devilish Illusion
What do we really know about death? We can try to figure out something to believe in after our own deaths, but perhaps death is really understood in the short story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. Bierce sets up the story by telling us all about a man, Peyton Farquhar, who is about to be hanged for stalling soldiers from passing to other areas. Farquhar briefly entertains ideas of his own escape. However, Farquhar died before he can completely think out this plan. Now in hell, he is doomed to repeat a very vivid and well thought out escape over and over. The line "as these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved..." (318) illustrates that the thoughts of escape are nothing more than illusions. The devil has gone through the trouble of conjuring up a believable escape, the very same thoughts the dead man has before he is killed, but much more thorough. Furthermore "Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge" leads the reader to see that none of the events actually took place, since the split few seconds from when he is standing on the platform to when he is sailing through the air does not establish a long enough time line for the whole plan to unfold. Therefore, the last wishes for freedom will be forever tormenting Farquhar for his actions.
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Karyssa Blair on A Devilish Illusion: This is such a good discussion
Melissa Schwenk on A Devilish Illusion: Karyssa - Nice counter argumen
Karyssa Blair on A Devilish Illusion: I think you have a convincing
Melissa Schwenk on A Devilish Illusion: Cody - Thank you. Aja - I did
Aja Hannah on A Devilish Illusion: Add in the fact that he went t
Cody Naylor on A Devilish Illusion: Oh. My. God. Melissa, I love y
Melissa Schwenk on A Devilish Illusion: Karyssa - Nice counter argumen
Karyssa Blair on A Devilish Illusion: I think you have a convincing
Melissa Schwenk on A Devilish Illusion: Cody - Thank you. Aja - I did
Aja Hannah on A Devilish Illusion: Add in the fact that he went t
Cody Naylor on A Devilish Illusion: Oh. My. God. Melissa, I love y
Oh. My. God. Melissa, I love you for thinking of this! It NEVER occurred to me that the story could have been written from this perspective! And the fact that you provided evidence from the text to back up your theory is even more impressive. Great work... I think I will frequent your blogs more often!
Add in the fact that he went toward the light!
Cody - Thank you.
Aja - I didn't talk about all the reasons, but another one if you look at Josie's blog about the pain aspects that are continually used, you could say that the devil was intentionally trying to inflict as much pain as possible throughout the escape as a punishment, too.
I think you have a convincing argument that could definitely be used in an essay if you wanted, but I have to disagree with your theory. We don't really know what Farquhar's done that would make his actions worthy of damnation. He had slaves, which is reason enough, but we don't know how those slaves were treated because the author never specifies.
I think the line from 318 was written that way just to show basic human instinct. When faced with death, the human brain instantly thinks of ways to avoid it. Also, I don't think the last line implies that none of the events actually happened. When a person is hanged, it takes approximately four minutes for them to actually die. Perhaps all of the events from the story really did take place in Farquhar's mind during those last minutes of his life.
I think it took a lot of creativity and out-of-box thinking to come up with your theory, I just don't agree with it myself.
Karyssa - Nice counter argument. I wasn't aware that it took four minutes to kill a person by hanging. Still, I find it hard to believe that a man would conjure that vivid of an image up in four minutes while he's in such pain and suffering. I'm not saying that it isn't possible, but just unlikely.
It states in his discription of escape that "as Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead" (319). This could be argued that he is already dead. If you're close to being dead, you're not making up an escape plan.
This is such a good discussion because we're interpreting the same thing differently, yet I think we are both correct. When I read "as Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead" (319), I interpreted that as he was only like a dead man. He was no longer reacting to the things around him, but his mind was still active. He wasn't necessarily making an escape plan, because everything in the escape plan was highly unlikely. It was dream-like, and far too detailed to be an on-the-spot plan. It was like a dream, everything happening just as he would want it to for him to return to his loved ones.